1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, a network apparatus, and a tangible machine-readable medium thereof for detecting a looping network packet; more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, a network apparatus, and a tangible machine-medium thereof for detecting a looping network packet by comparing related parameters of a routing table with related parameters of a network packet.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
When network packets are sent in the network, some errors may occur. For example, if the routing technique is used to determine the routing path of a network packet, the network packets may end up being sent back and forth among several fixed routing nodes instead of being sent to the correct destination nodes. This condition is known as a routing loop. Routing loops may occur in general network structures, especially those employing two routing techniques at the same time, such as the Zigbee wireless network, which is defined based-on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
The network layer of the Zigbee wireless network provides two routing techniques. The first one is table routing, while the other one is hierarchical routing. These two routing techniques will not generate routing loops if they are used separately. Nevertheless, the Zigbee wireless network allows the two routing techniques to coexist and operate at the same time. With this algorithm, the routing link of the same network packets may be determined by different routing techniques of different nodes. Thus, the network packets could possibly form a routing loop while they are sent.
Because the network protocols currently do not define the conditions under which routing loops occur, the detection of the routing loop can only be made after the actual establishment and measurement of the network. Thus, it is important to find a method for detecting the routing loop of the network packets when they are sent, without modifying the current network structures.